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Eddie O'Sullivan predicts Scotland will turn ruck into "bar-room brawl" against Ireland

Are Ireland primed to make it four from four in the 2018 Six Nations and avoid a shock at the han...



Eddie O'Sullivan predicts...
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Eddie O'Sullivan predicts Scotland will turn ruck into "bar-room brawl" against Ireland

Are Ireland primed to make it four from four in the 2018 Six Nations and avoid a shock at the hands of a Scotland side that saw off England last time out?

We got the thoughts of former Ireland head coach Eddie O'Sullivan, who was speaking to Joe from the very familiar surroundings of Buccaneers in Athlone for our Roadshow in association with Heineken Rugby Club.

You can also listen in on the podcast player:

Eddie O'Sullivan predicts Scotland will turn ruck into "bar-room brawl" against Ireland

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While Eddie does not expect Ireland's approach to be markedly different than the win against Wales, he pointed out one area where the Scotland match will have a different feel. 

"It's a tricky one in a sense that you'll have to go a similar road as we did against Wales. We don't want a loose game against Scotland. That's what they want. A quick game. We have to be very controlled in our approach," he said.

"That probably means we'll be similarly direct as we were against Wales. The only difference is that Wales didn't compete at the breakdown, so we dominated possession.

"We turned over one out of 134 rucks. I think that's different against Scotland. Scotland last year they turned us over four or five times in Edinburgh. They turned England over 10 times in Edinburgh. They'll come and look to turn the ruck into a bar-room brawl so that's the challenge for Joe Schmidt is to keep this similar approach philosophically to the game, to play very direct and controlled but at the same time not let Scotland stymie our ruck ball and take us away from that collision based game."

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